The Band: Ladyhawke
The Buzz: Pouty New Zealand chanteuse (real name: Pip Brown) stimulates your Lauper gland.
Listen If: You can complete this lyric: "I remember hating you for loving me/Riding on the __________."
Key Track: "Back of the Van," a song so terrifically '80s you can almost taste the Aqua Net.

The Band: Tanya Morgan
The Buzz: Never mind the name — Tanya Morgan is a hip-hop trio with an affinity for soul breaks, big beats and complex, conscious lyrics.
Listen If: You can name the four essential elements of hip-hop, and you're bummed that most popular rappers cannot.
Key Track: "Threemcees," which introduces the world to the concept of a "bi-polar bear." Which is perhaps a distant relative to the "Hypochondrioctopus"?

The Band: Black Ghosts
The Buzz: London electro duo gaining traction thanks to a recent Diplo remix.
Listen If: You used to play Colecovision just for the soundtracks.
Key Track: That Diplo remix of "Repetition Kills You," which twists the band's bright bounce down 10 octaves until it sounds like something from Violator.

Who: Seattle's harmonic five piece Fleet Foxes, who follow-up a critically-acclaimed EP and intense live performances with their self-titled debut album.

Sounds Like: A mixture of fellow Sub Poppers Band of Horses and Iron & Wine, Fleet Foxes create harmonic pop jams. Think CSNY performing Pet Sounds. "I'm just a sucker for harmonies," says frontman Robin Pecknold.

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Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Cool Kids
The Buzz: Chicago duo do old-school hip-hop with pride, passion and plenty of punchlines.
Listen If: You also miss the sound of an 808, and prefer T La Rock to T-Pain.
Key Track: "What it Is" off the upcoming Bake Sale EP, where the pair freewheel over a track that would do Eric B proud.

The Band: White Williams
The Buzz: Weirdo electro new wave with pitch-bent vocals, LED synths and whole canyons of empty space.
Listen If: You find yourself saying the words "Man, Tubeway Army were so underrated" with alarming frequency.
Key Track: "Violator," whose twinkling electronics and strange spirals of sound will probably make your calculator and your microwave amorous.

The Band: Young Knives
The Buzz: Hip-dork Brit band overloads songs with words, riffs.
Listen If: You really could have used the concept of the "hip dork" 10 or 15 years ago.
Key Track: "Up All Night," where guitars zig-zag over bouncing-ball bass and Henry Dartnell's self-aware Cockney pout.

[Photo: Getty]

Who: Rap-rock six piece Flobots, a Denver collective led by self-described "Jesus meets Huey P. Newton" emcee Jonny 5.

Sounds Like: Linkin Park with Rage Against the Machine's Zach de la Rocha and his political leanings at the microphone and a violinist building the tension. Jonny 5 raps about topics like human rights, globalization and drug legalization on the band's major label debut Fight with Tools.

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Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Mates of State
The Buzz: Connecticut lovebirds write sweet, sunny pop songs.
Listen If: You believe in domestic bliss and the power of a solid melody.
Key Track: "Get Better," a heavenly slow-burner full of ambling piano and sawing violins that blossoms into a 70mm hyper-color chorus

The Band: Bodies of Water
The Buzz: Spiritual collective rewrites the hymnal to incorporate prog, freakfolk.
Listen If: You have a soft spot for church music, and you would've liked Polyphonic Spree if they weren't so f@#&in' happy.
Key Track: "Under the Pines" from the group's forthcoming record finds them embracing their '70s rock impulses, opening with pipe organ and winding its way through long, knotty passages.

The Band: Sigur Ros
The Buzz: Eerie Icelandic orch-poppers refine their sensibilities and create brisk, crackling pop.
Listen If: You're attending a pot-luck seance, or you're looking to score a YouTube video where everyone rides bicycles through a series of caves.
Key Track: "Gobbledigook," a dark, breezy number powered by palpitating percussion and lit up with occasional orchestral filigrees. It's the sound of sorcery.

[Photo: Crackerfarm]

Who: The Tings Tings, a New Waving boy/girl duo whose private rave-ups in Manchester had A&R people, record producers and even Rick Rubin personally asking the band for tickets to their shows.

Sounds Like: "We're complete pop freaks," says singer-guitarist Katie White, and she and drummer Jules De Martino back up the claim on their debut album We Started Nothing by combining cardboard-stiff beats, staccato guitar plinks and cheerleader-style chants with Blondie-esque energy.

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Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Ting Tings
The Buzz: British boy/girl duo dish out dance tracks done up in neon; find themselves scoring iPod ads and Gossip Girl.
Listen If: The first thing you did with GarageBand was make a Lily Allen/Franz Ferdinand mashup.
Key Track: "Shut Up and Let Me Go," which updates the guitar strut of Blondie's "Rapture" with lyrics about getting off and getting angry.

The Band: Ponytail
The Buzz: Bonkers Baltimore band creates chaotic compositions bursting with joy, possibility and life.
Listen If: You're tired of pasty whiners and want music that sounds like a series of exclamation points.
Key Track: The spectacular "Beg Waves," where a breathless strum does battle with vocalist Molly Siegel's euphoric ululations, resulting in a song that lifts the spirit while blowing the mind.

The Band: HEALTH
The Buzz: LA noise band have just dropped a remix album, adding a little rhythm to their sturm und drang.
Listen If: You always thought what free jazz was missing was a wicked backbeat.
Key Track: "Triceratops (Cfcf Remix)," which starts like the Halloween theme and ends with what sounds like a screaming keytar — which is a whole different kind of scary.

[Photo: Getty]

Who: Tokyo Police Club, a Toronto quartet who played to audiences at the Coachella, Lollapalooza and Glastonbury festivals before they turned twenty-one or even released their debut album.

Sounds Like: Too poppy to be post-punk but too clean to be garage-rock, TPC marry bright keyboards and the buoyant voice of singer/bassist Dave Monk into perfect danceable two-minute tunes on their debut album Elephant Shell.

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Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.

The Band: Ratatat
The Buzz: Brooklyn duo makes clever, clattering floor-fillers with nods to both rock and techno.
Listen If: You play guitar along to Daft Punk tracks because you're plagued by the feeling something's missing.
Key Track: "Shiller" is his latest, and it's so controlled and restrained it's almost taunting: nothing but music box synthesizers and an ominous bass thrum.

The Band: This Is Ivy League
The Buzz: Covert crew members on the Cobra Starship go undercover as twee-hugging indiepoppers. In fairness: they were in Ivy League first, but someone has to pay for that Snakes on a Plane song.
Listen If: You do the bulk of your record shopping in the dollar bins at Salvation Army and know your Left Banke from your Free Design.
Key Track: "Love is Impossible," which scoots along on sugared-up percussion, decked out with bleary brass and broad, bright strumming.

The Band: Spiritualized
The Buzz: Rock vets break a long hibernation with a song that trades their druggy majesty for genuine penitnence.
Listen If: You wish there was a little more room for imperfection (and songs about the same) on the pop charts.
Key Track: "Soul on Fire," from the forthcoming Songs in A&E, which is about the best junkie-gospel this side of Marianne Faithfull.

Who: Sam Champion, a quartet of boisterous New Yorkers eager to play you the songs that got them kicked out of every practice facility in Brooklyn.

Sounds Like: Ryan Adams covering songs off Pavement's Wowee Zowee. On their second album Heavenly Bender, Sam Champion genre jumps from song to song, joyfully morphing elements of raw punk and twangy roots rock with Beck-like precision. "We're just trying to make music that we'd listen to. Crunchy guitars, weird parts, beautiful harmonies and songs you can sing along with,” says singer/guiarist Noah Chernin.

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